Envelope tests positive for ricin at Washington mail facility
Washington (CNN) -- An envelope that tested positive
for the deadly poison ricin was intercepted Tuesday afternoon at the
U.S. Capitol's off-site mail facility in Washington, congressional and
law enforcement sources tell CNN.
Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid said he was told the letter was addressed to the office of
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Mississippi. A laboratory in Maryland confirmed the
presence of ricin after initial field tests indicated the poison was
present, according to Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Terrance Gainer.
However, the FBI said additional testing is needed as field and preliminary tests produce inconsistent results.
"Only a full analysis
performed at an accredited laboratory can determine the presence of a
biological agent such as ricin," according to the bureau. "Those tests
are in the process of being conducted and generally take from 24 to 48
hours."
In a statement late
Tuesday, the U.S. Capitol Police said more tests would be conducted at
the Army's biomedical research laboratory at Fort Detrick, Maryland.
The letter had a Memphis, Tennessee, postmark and no return address, Gainer wrote in an e-mail to senators and aides.
Sen. Claire McCaskill
told reporters after a briefing for lawmakers that a suspect has already
been identified in the incident, but a knowledgeable source said no one
was in custody Tuesday night.
Letter laced with ricin sent to Senate
Envelope to Senator positive for poison
Wicker, the junior senator from Mississippi, has been assigned a protective detail, according to a law enforcement source.
Postal workers started
handling mail at a site off Capitol Hill after the 2001 anthrax attacks
that targeted then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle and Vermont Sen. Patrick
Leahy, among others. Senators were told the post office would be
temporarily shut down "to make sure they get everything squared away,"
McCaskill, D-Missouri, said Tuesday afternoon.
"The bottom line is, the
process we have in place worked," she said. Members will be warning
their home-state offices to look out for similar letters, she added.
A previous ricin scare
hit the Capitol in 2004, when tests identified a letter in a Senate
mailroom that served then-Majority Leader Bill Frist's office. The
discovery forced 16 employees to go through decontamination procedures,
but no one reported any ill effects afterward, Frist said.
Ricin is a highly toxic
substance derived from castor beans. As little as 500 micrograms -- an
amount the size of the head of a pin -- can kill an adult. There is no
specific test for exposure and no antidote once exposed.
It can be produced
easily and cheaply, and authorities in several countries have
investigated links between suspect extremists and ricin. But experts say
it is more effective on individuals than as a weapon of mass
destruction.
Ricin was used in the
1978 assassination of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov. The author, who
had defected nine years earlier, was jabbed by the tip of an umbrella
while waiting for a bus in London and died four days later.
Wicker, 61, was first
appointed by former Republican Gov. Haley Barbour to the U.S. Senate in
December 2007 after the resignation of then-Sen. Trent Lott. He was then
elected to the seat in 2008 and won re-election in 2012 to a second
term.
Before joining the
Senate, he was a U.S. representative in the House from 1995 to 2007.
Before that, he served in the Mississippi Senate.
CNN's Rachel Streitfeld and Matt Smith contributed to this report.
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